


A Daisy Through Concrete

by chinashopbull



Series: I Write the B-Sides [1]
Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Homelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 09:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinashopbull/pseuds/chinashopbull
Summary: “Mr. Castigliano,” Pepper says, “are you familiar with the old folktales about being kind to strangers and travelers? The kind where they turn out to be Faeries or spirits, and depending on how you treat them, they either punish you horrendously or do something that turns your whole life around?”She tilts her head toward Peter and says, “Mikey here isexactlythe kind of person they probably based those stories on.”** Set a few months after the events of I Like Birds. Mild thematic spoilers, one spoiler for a major event that occurred in ILB ch 14. Nothing egregious, but I wanted to offer a heads up. **





	A Daisy Through Concrete

**Author's Note:**

> This is a gift-fic for... every single person who's reached out to offer help, support, comfort, and/or solidarity to me and my partner. Some of you are old friends, most of you are still, technically, strangers-on-the-internet, but _I love you_ in that essential, human way. If my partner & I succeed in starting to build an actual life this year, it'll be due in large part to all y'all. 
> 
> And even if things don't fully turn around for us, having _this many people_ in my corner is... it's frickin' overwhelming, in the best possible way. It's a reason to believe that the effort is Worth It. You've already changed my life. We all know I'm prone to melodramatic prose, but that's not an exaggeration. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm still at a loss as to how to express all the things I'm feeling, fully and properly. Hopefully this fic can go a ways toward that. It's not much, maybe, but this is my thank-you gift to you. I hope you like it.
> 
> So:  
> Here. Thank you.

The rain stopped just _after_ the end of Spider-Man’s patrol last night, because of course it did. He remembers his hot shower before bed, because he remembers how much he _hated_ knowing that the fastest way to warm up was to cover himself with yet more water. 

And he remembers how indulgent his clean dry sweatpants felt around his legs after that, because he’s been really working hard at the whole “positive thinking” thing, and that includes taking special note of stuff like the first sensation of soft-dry-warm-calm after being wet-cold-violent-stressed for (*checks phone*) nine hours forty-five minutes.

Positive thinking also includes appreciating the fact that it _only_ lasted nine hours forty-five minutes, as opposed to months upon months.

He doesn’t remember going to bed. He was too wiped. Well — he remembers Wade nuzzling into his hair for a second before drawing back with snorts and grumbles about hair dryers and wet cats.

He’s still waking up. Slowly, luxuriously. It’s almost noon.

Then he rolls over and finds Wade’s side of the bed cold, rumpled. And in the place where he last saw Wade’s bare arm draped across Wade’s bare chest in a rather grumpy-looking sleep, there’s a fifty-dollar bill for food and a sheet of Lisa Frank stationery with Wade’s latest burner number scrawled across it in sparkly magenta ink. Beneath the phone number, the words “Thu-Fri”.

And it’s not that he _minds_ Wade stealing off like a thief in the night to take a job — clients tend to contact him in the wee hours no matter how often or how colorfully Wade’s tried to assert business hours, and Wade’s never been inclined to wait around for morning when someone sings promises of cash money into his ear.

And it’s only until Thursday or Friday. 

It’s more the mild hypocrisy that irks Peter. That, and the feeling he’s still being subtly punished for his own midnight disappearance accompanied by a bare-bones note.

…Okay well, _that_ irks him, _and_ the fact that it means he has to make his own breakfast. He swears Wade only got him into the habit of eating in the morning (or “morning”) just so Peter would have one more reason to miss him and one more reason to welcome him back. Devious bastard.

…That, _and,_ even in his sleep, Peter had already been looking forward to morning snuggles (and afternoon delight) to complete the exorcism of last night’s foul, rained-on feeling.

Peter reminds himself that waking up grouchy is a universal human mood. The broader perspective does nothing to alleviate said mood.

He scrubs his crusty eyes and folds the neon-panda-bear paper around the banknote like an envelope, sliding the whole thing into his wallet and dropping it back on the nightstand before getting up to relieve himself.

A bottle of My Little Pony-branded, cherry blossom-scented bubble bath with the safety seal still around the cap is sitting dead center on the bathtub ledge. Peter notices because Rainbow Dash is watching him pee. Flanking the soap bottle is a blue loofah shaped like a stegosaurus and a rubber duckie that Peter can immediately tell is one of those vibrators-in-disguise.

He shakes off, and washes his hands, and decides to leave all that alone. Wade’ll get a better evening out of it than he would. 

And Wade’ll want exactly that kind of simple comfort come Thursday or Friday.

By the time he’s pulled on a Cap-branded t-shirt and the skinny jeans that Wade was Correct to insist Peter try on, he already knows he doesn’t have the energy to feed himself like an adult. 

He grabs the red Chucks, because they pull the whole getup together with the red in Cap’s logo on his chest, and because, although Wade didn’t consult Peter before buying a rainbow’s worth of Chuck high-tops in Peter’s size when his old pair wore out — and although Peter would’ve refused the mass purchase because _why_ — the fact is Wade never saves receipts so he’s _got_ them now, and. Y’know. Might as well.

So he _likes_ it. So what. He’s allowed to like things. Even where “things” indicates his surface appearance, and the pleasure of opening his closet door to an exorbitantly expensive but neatly arranged gay rainbow of shoes, and the extra bounciness of sneakers with soles that haven’t been scraped to oblivion yet, and a little bit of bright brave color that he can carry with him all day.

Jacket? Nah, the sun’s out and if today is anything like yesterday (before the rain) he won’t need it.

Wallet, phone, keys, camera, headphones. Doorknob lock, upper deadbolt, lower deadbolt, and the secret deadbolt Wade installed on the hinge side of the door to make up for the fact that you can’t close the chain lock from the outside. Peter’s fingers flip through the keys on his ring and slot the locks with the comfortable action of muscle memory, a stim unto itself.

Headphones on, Spotify bouncing down a line of those slim late-‘90s pop songs from The Days Before Autotuning, and Peter’s Chucks hit the sidewalk like moonshoes.

_Damn_ it’s such a nice day. The pavement’s all dry except at the edges and corners and gutters, and where the sun is just beginning to reach these corners, steam is rising. Smells like garbage and pigeon guano. 

Perfect day.

Peter only goes to Starbucks when Wade’s out of town. He couldn’t tell you why, not for sure. Maybe having it to look forward to eases whatever gloom or worry might otherwise stir up his brain, prodding him with ideas about what might happen to Wade or with childish grumping about what _he_ and Wade could theoretically be doing right now, if they were physically together, that would be unambiguously Better than this.

Or maybe he just likes having a minor ritual that belongs only to him.

Sometimes it’s fun to go someplace with one fancy takeout cup and one white paper bag containing one chocolate croissant, and sit down, and listen to music, and watch the city happen all around him — without any expectations, in either direction.

He unwraps the fifty from its Lisa Frank envelope and wads the money before handing it to the barista, sort of tucking the cash under his hand, softly waving the bright stationery like a Polaroid to divert attention. It still feels weird to be carrying such a lot of cash, and he doesn’t care to have anyone see him with it.

Not for fear of getting mugged — hell, he’d _enjoy_ the entertainment — but it’s just. Peter Parker is not the sort of man who just _has money._ The nice clothes bought from any store other than the “thrift” kind are already pushing it. Somehow the idea of anyone — even Random New Yorkers — hell, even the _barista_ — linking his face to an ample wallet… 

He doesn’t enjoy being misread or misunderstood. He’s got quite enough of that going on in his life already.

He’s got no issue leaving a significant tip, though. Hashtag-respect-service-workers.

(Neither does he have an issue, apparently, with being seen lovingly refolding and sliding Lisa Frank stationery into the back pocket of his skinny jeans. And he already knew he has no qualms about drawing attention to his own ass.)

It’s an adjustment, that’s all. Of all the adjustments he’s been making regarding his expectations from life, this one’s lower on the priority list than, say, learning to expect to eat full meals more than once a day, expecting the rent to be payable in full, expecting the internet to work when he opens his laptop, expecting Wade to come home from work on Thursday or Friday happy to see Peter, and then to leave for work again eventually.

Good problems to have. Figuring out what the fuck went wrong with his emotional relationship to money and where that intersects with his identity is a much less alluring prospect.

Besides, he has a croissant to eat and pigeons to watch. 

Peter collects the neatly folded-over edge of his pastry bag into his fist and crumples the paper into a crispy crunchy wad that pokes into the skin of his palm, sending mild tingles along the lines of his nerves. He tucks the crushed paper against the sweating plastic of his frozen frou-frou coffee to free up his other hand to grab a straw, also paper-wrapped. How much paper waste does the average Manhattan Starbucks produce in a day, a month, a year? Note to self: look it up on phone, once comfortably seated somewhere with his own private share of paper waste.

He sidesteps this way and that around the human shapes milling about between him and the door. Ever since the bite he never accidentally brushes or bumps _anyone_ — possibly the only person in the city who can say this, which looses a silent giggle inside his head whenever he thinks of it — except on the train, because avoiding all incidental human contact on the train would mean practicing a level of agility and contortion that would draw a lot of eyes. 

Past the sea of blurry-faced human forms, the glass of the door is chilly against his hand, but the sun greets him kindly when he emerges and pauses a moment to hold the door open for a fashionable straight couple. The man has his head in a pair of Beats By Dre (overpriced, actually very low sound quality) and doesn’t notice Peter any more than he would a large rock propping the door open; the woman gives him a moment of eye contact and reaches out to touch the door as she passes through.

Peter lets the door fall, and doesn’t walk away yet.

There’s a man sitting on the sidewalk with his back to the Starbucks wall, just beyond the edge of the farthest window, near the coin-op newspaper boxes. He’s still adjusting his cardboard sign and the Yankees cap low over his face. Lower, lower. Seeking that sweet spot between covering as much of his face as he can while still being able to see around him.

Peter takes another step back from the doorway just in case someone expects him to open it for them, which he has no intention of doing.

He peers at the man on the ground, who either hasn’t noticed him yet or is studiously ignoring him. As the man rests his wrists against his propped-up knees, stretching his hands upward with empty cup between them, his wrist slides beyond the edge of his jacket sleeve a couple inches.

And yes, Peter definitely knows the time- and sun-faded edge of the sleeve tattoo that this motion reveals. 

He gives himself another short moment to release his thoughts of crowd-watching and pigeon-feeding, to locate his Social and unearth it from his pre-breakfast caginess. Then he crosses the storefront and says, gently, “Hey.”

Jeff startles and gives the surroundings a quick sweep with his eyes before looking up at Peter. He hasn’t been sleeping, because of course he hasn’t. 

Peter knows that feel.

“D’you remember me?” says Peter.

Jeff squints, uncertain.

“We met right here,” says Peter. “You bought me a hot dog on the first day, and then the next day a fancy coffee thing like this—“ he gestures with the coffee; the paper bag sways, makes a sound like dead leaves. “And then someone put a whole bunch of money in my cup and we got a bunch of food at the bodega two corners down.”

“Mikey!” says Jeff. His voice cracks a little, but it sounds less like the emotional kind of crack and more like the kind of crack you get when you’re underslept and maybe dehydrated and maybe haven’t used your voice much lately. His next sentence sounds more Tired than anything, though. “Shit, you look awesome.”

“Yeah, things super turned around for me,” says Peter, and pauses, glances at the sidewalk beside Jeff.

“If you really wanna,” says Jeff, dubiously, and lofts his hand over the sidewalk.

Peter sits. The sidewalk and building face are much chillier than the air. 

Jeff isn’t the sort to blather, or to begin conversations, and Peter isn’t sure what exactly to say yet. He leans the back of his head against the wall and watches people’s legs step around, or sometimes right over, his and Jeff’s feet. The bright white toe-caps of Peter’s bouncy red shoes glare in the light, reflecting a trace of guilt back into his eyes. Nothing in Jeff’s shoes shine. 

Ever since the Brotherhood, Peter’s remained in the habit of noticing what people have on their feet. On the one hand it’s a good way to tell one person from another, the way the South Park characters are recognizable by their coats and hats. On the other hand, Forrest Gump’s momma was right, to an extent, about being able to Tell Things about a person by their shoes.

He met Jeff before the Brotherhood, though, so he couldn’t say whether these are the same shoes or not. He imagines so, but doesn’t want to presume. Instead he takes the paper off his straw, drinks his sugar-with-a-hint-of-frozen-coffee, and unthinkingly passes his bag of breakfast over to Jeff.

“I’m glad you made it through the winter,” Peter says, eventually.

Jeff grunts.

“That sounds like a platitude, doesn’t it,” Peter says.

Jeff begins to reply, but his mouth seems as Tired as the rest of him, and what he ends up saying is “Nnyyyeehh,” with a vague inflection of _Yeah, but don’t beat yourself up over it, I’m used to this shit._

“I got myself into a cult for a while,” Peter says. “Few months. I knew what they were — or I mean, kinda. But like. The beds were mostly safe and the food was decent, y’know? _Then_ of course the whole thing kinda… blew up.” (It’s so deliciously convenient when the literal truth sounds like a figure of speech.) “Which is exactly what needed to happen. It was a really messed-up place. I mean. I’m fine, now. The other guys there, the good ones who were just… in it… kinda like the way I was… they’re mostly fine now. Or getting better. Got… I ended up reconnecting with some people. From my life before. After all that. But like. Better than we were connected before. Like, I have a boyfriend now. Friends. All that.”

Jeff smiles. It’s short, but seems genuine. Then it’s gone. He says, “Good. ‘M glad.”

But he’s still curled a bit tighter on the ground, pulling himself into himself with the tension in his stomach muscles. He unrumples the top of the bag and looks down at the croissant inside.

Pause. Take stock.

It occurs to Peter that the words coming out of his mouth are following eerily familiar patterns. Croissant instead of pie, a sidewalk instead of a diner booth. Obviously he has no intention of dragging Jeff into a cult, but… still.

Change this, now.

How?

Jeff slowly extracts the pastry, eats it with small mouselike bites, like he can’t open his mouth too wide. Peter stirs the green straw through his overpriced frou-frou coffee and sucks up flavor, spreads it across his waiting tongue.

Once Jeff has finished the pastry, Peter holds out a hand for the empty bag, wads it into a ball, waits until there’s a gap in foot traffic, and sinks it into the trash can across the way with superpowered perfection.

He still doesn’t know what to say. He just looks over at Jeff, and this time when he opens his mouth he says, “You want a job? Like, a real job with benefits and stuff? _Not_ cult-related.”

Jeff side-eyes him.

“I gave you half my food money one day,” says Peter. “And I’m not saying that to be manipulative. Look at me; I’ve done fine. I’m saying, y’know. Gimme whatever benefit of the doubt you can manage to scrounge up today.”

Jeff shifts, realigns his back against the support of the wall, and looks at him for a long time. His expression, if he even has one (it’s hard to tell), doesn’t give much away.

“C’mon,” says Peter, and he stands up and holds out a hand to offer Jeff a pull up. Peter thinks he should offer a reassuring smile, but his face doesn’t cooperate.

Which is just as well, because after another second or two Jeff accepts his hand, and as Peter lifts him easily to his feet, he thinks that a forced smile is exactly what Drew would’ve done, and probably would’ve put Jeff off completely.

Not everyone is as gullible as you, Parker.

Peter has enough energy — especially with the caffeine boost — to jog all the way there, but Jeff is Tired, so instead they go to the nearest train station, and Peter taps his card twice, letting Jeff go through first.

For reasons unknown, Peter blathers on about Ghostbusters while the train rattles on about squeaky wheels and overheated tracks.

They both blink their way back into the sunlight. 

Kristoff is flanking the door in his security uniform; Peter doesn’t recognize the other guard. Bethany is behind the receptionist desk. She glances at Jeff, pulls out a Visitor tag.

“Applicant,” Peter corrects her, and without missing a beat she swaps the tag out for a different one. (Applicant and Visitor tags are embedded with different kinds of tracking and security chips.) Jeff sticks a nervous elbow into Peter’s ribs, but before Peter can try to soothe whichever of Jeff’s nerves are feeling exposed, Bethany is asking Jeff for his full name, phone number, please place your thumb on the pad, it’s just for security purposes.

“It’s okay,” Peter says. 

A robot assistant — one without a name, that Peter calls “R2” because that’s what it looks like — rolls sedately past with its little sprayer-hose extended and starts watering the plants over by the public reception area. Jeff stares at it, blankly, then at Peter.

“I promise,” Peter says. 

JARVIS keeps his mouth shut when they get into the elevator. He updates his protocol way faster than Peter does, and made the mistake of speaking to a strange and poorly kempt man in Peter’s company only once.

“I’m not exactly in interview-ready condition here, Mikey,” says Jeff, running a hand down the edge of his jacket. Peter can smell him. It’s not so different from the way Tony smells during an insomnia streak.

“Trust me, they won’t bat an eye,” says Peter.

“But it’s _Stark Industries,”_ says Jeff.

“Which is full of pleasant surprises and smart people,” says Peter. “And excellent health benefits.” He looks at Jeff. “Give it a chance to start making sense.”

“Really.”

“JARVIS, hold the elevator a second.”

The booth slides to a swift but gentle stop. That actually _doesn’t_ settle Jeff’s nerves.

Peter pivots away from the door, faces Jeff. “Dude, please. I’m asking you. As your hotdog buddy. Please. Believe me when I say that today? Is _exactly_ the kind of day most people would be too embarrassed to dream about. I know it’s a lot, and I know it’s scary. And I know — I _know_ — you don’t believe this is really happening.”

“What even _is_ ‘this’?”

“You’re getting a job.”

Jeff actually scoffs. “Sure, kid.”

Peter closes his eyes and shrugs one shoulder only. “Scoff if you want. That’s actually fine. Just relax and pretend this is all a good dream, if that’s what you have to do. But my advice? Just roll with it. You can start working on _believing_ it tomorrow.”

Jeff leans to the other foot. His boots creak with the shift. His gaze lingers on the featureless black glass where most elevators would feature a button panel. JARVIS starts moving the elevator without Peter having to say anything.

The door opens, and Maria steps aside to let them off before she gets on. _”Another_ one?” she mutters to Peter as they pass one another.

“Hey now, you’re not always right about everything on the first guess, _Mizz Judgypants McBusybritches,”_ says Peter, but her eyes were rolling before he even started speaking and the door pinches shut on the end of Peter’s sentence. He growls halfheartedly at JARVIS for cutting him off, but it really is halfhearted and sounds more like an annoyed whine.

Jeff’s gone a bit stiff. “You just—“ He lowers his voice. “Did you just insult _Maria Hill.”_

“Please. I barely even tried. Nothing gets under that woman’s skin.” Peter headtilts. “Wait. How do you know her?”

“I don’t!”

“I mean how do you know who she is?”

“I know what you meant — it’s classified,” Jeff finishes, something in his posture changing.

“Yuh-huh. Which branch of the military did you say you…?”

“Navy.”

Eh, that tracks. Probably. Peter’s disinclined to try fact-checking SHIELD’s comings and goings and doings. He’s starting to really lose his taste for slamming his head against brick walls.

Anyway, if there _is_ anything fishy about Jeff, the Stark Industries hiring process will find it. Especially if they run Jeff through the same kinds of extra background checks (and psych evals, and surveillance) they’ve run on every former Brotherhood member that Peter’s found, dragged to the cush waiting lounge outside Pepper’s office, and passionately pled for.

It’s really super lucky that Greg was the first of them, because Pepper stamped her hooves a _lot_ when Peter first started demanding the company hand out living-wage jobs and impressive benefits packages and transitional housing to former cult members, on nothing but Spider-Man’s word and Peter’s expertise in guilt-based (but ultimately benevolent!) manipulation. 

Oh, and the added pressure on Pepper coming from Tony’s side, because Tony’s guilt is still on a hair trigger and he’ll throw money at any good cause Peter so much as breathes on. (A fact originally pointed out to him by Wade. Sometimes the line between a good influence and a bad one is so comfortingly fuzzy.)

Pepper would’ve come down hard on the side of No More, Never Again if Greg wasn’t such a damn good guy, if his improvements to the cafeteria menu at SI’s Brooklyn office weren’t so damn amazing, if he didn’t regularly send experimental pastries over to corporate on some of his days off, if he hadn’t ended up adopting a _really_ sweet cross-eyed cat right off the street and named her Pickles and gotten her an impressive Instagram following in short order. Pickles’ followers include Happy, Wade, and — if Clint is to be believed — Phil Coulson.

How could Pepper deny that using her power to help _this kind of person_ in _this particular way_ was a good idea, in light of results like that? 

Not all of the once-were Brothers are as genuinely _good_ as Greg is, but Greg paved a wonderful path for them.

So. Greg being the first was kismet.

That Greg _also_ happened to find one of the Brotherhood kids, one who’s actually old enough to work part time — who’s not having a great time in his foster home — and that Greg went out of his way to ask Peter to pull similar strings on the kid’s behalf, well… kismet 2.0?

And the _kid_ is a lonely angry nerd named Brad who loves Pantera and captured Tony’s heart even more than Peter’s.

Tony took it upon himself to have Maria (very illegally) track down all the other kids — most of them in the system now, unfortunately — and extend offers of part-time work, or promises of part-time work once they were old enough, and promises of full-time work placement and housing, for life, for every last one of them, from the day of their 18th birthdays.

Pepper found it impossible to argue more than semantics with Peter, once Tony allowed this information to be known (subtly, casually, when he was losing a moral argument and hoping for praise instead).

The point being, Pepper’s come to just sort of _expect_ Peter to show up with strays in various states of hygiene and/or mental health. 

And to expect Peter to Not Leave Her Alone until she gives said strays a firm foothold, firm supports, and a clear path forward with no contractual obligation to remain with the company — and guaranteed job placement _somewhere_ in the company for the rest of their natural lives should they choose to avail themselves of it, unless they embezzle or something.

And on Peter’s part, having now established Pepper’s Resigned Agreement as a normal response to something he does — he understands, now, why Tony relies so heavily and so often on getting this exact response from Pepper. 

It’s the only time she doesn’t have A Better Idea.

…Scratch that. It’s the only time she doesn’t see any _point_ in trying assert her Better Idea.

He _would_ feel bad about it, but this is all in the name of helping people. And she knows that, too. (Some of the more generous details of what she privately refers to as “the cultist contract” were her own initiative. It was Peter’s idea to start with, and Tony built on it, but _Pepper_ is the one who really makes the deal sweet, and really makes it happen.)

So when she rounds the corner from her office, unconsciously sidestepping one of the looming potted plants that grow nearly to the ceiling in her waiting lounge, she’s already got her StarkPad balanced on her forearm and her eyes are darting across the screen in the jumpy-jerky way people’s eyes move when they read.

She drifts to a stop, finishes her reading, and instantly snaps into Corporate Frontman mode.

“Mr. Castigliano, I’m Virginia Potts.”

“Ma’am.”

“I don’t suppose anyone’s _bothered_ to explain to you exactly what you’re doing here,” she says, poking Peter with her gaze.

“No ma’am. Not — not as such,” says Jeff, glancing at Peter too.

“We can sit down for a minute, if you like,” says Pepper. “I’m just gonna run over a few things real quick, answer whatever questions you can actually _think_ of right now, then if that all sounds fine and makes sense to you, I’ll send you off with Georgia to walk you through the practical details and help you kind of…” She makes a spinning-grasping gesture with one hand. “Absorb all this, at a less aggressive pace. Sound like a plan?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jeff’s voice is pitched louder than Peter’s ever heard it, but he sits in one of the chairs, and Pepper perches on the edge of the seat opposite.

“So. Stark Industries has recently started a new, kind of experimental program — which we’ve been getting away with so far mainly because it’s small and because Tony Stark is providing the per-capita funding out of pocket, so absolutely _none_ of this is beholden to shareholders…”

Peter wanders off to one side to check to see if the big, hard-bodied, yellow spider is still hiding behind the huge leaves of the one plant in the corner window. It’s not a conversation he needs to listen to. They’re all the same, really, and Pepper’s StarkPad has probably already told her way more about Jeff than Peter could. 

The leaves are thick, waxy-feeling, torso-sized. He folds them carefully back until his motions set the spider’s weblines quivering and she scrambles into hiding behind the plant’s stem. Some fruit flies and a moth are tangled in her webbing. Good girl.

He continues poking around, feeling if the soil needs watering, pulling a dead leaf here or there, and stays among the plants, looking out the window at the bright hard city, for a while.

He emerges from the potted jungle after Pepper finishes firing off her speech and Jeff’s made a few small answers.

Jeff blinks at him, dazed; Pepper’s scrolling and doesn’t look up.

“Anything else I should know at the outset, Mikey?” says Pepper. She never misses a secret-identity beat, bless her.

“Jeff’s got nothing to do with the Brotherhood,” says Peter. “Like, zero affiliation. He bought me a hotdog once when I was really hungry.”

She looks at Peter for another two seconds before her memory supplies an adequate number of connections, then taps at her screen. “Awesome, great,” she says. “That’s a whole _category_ of things we don’t have to deal with, then.” 

She sets the pad down on her thighs, and rests her forearms across them, crossed at the wrists like a cat. For half a moment, she simply considers something. Then her voice turns ever so slightly more conversational. “Mr. Castigliano,” she says, “are you familiar with the old folktales about being kind to strangers and travelers? The kind where they turn out to be Faeries or spirits, and depending on how you treat them, they either punish you horrendously or do something that turns your whole life around?” 

At Jeff’s mute — and slightly alarmed — nod, Pepper tilts her head toward Peter and says, “Mikey here is _exactly_ the kind of person they probably based those stories on.”

They both look at Peter (Jeff with guarded curiosity, Pepper with thinly veiled amusement), and he shuffles.

Then his stomach squelches grumpily around the nothingness inside it. “Neh,” he grumbles down at it, as it squeals. He angles his shoulders longingly toward the elevator door. He didn’t get to eat his croissant and it’s already past lunchtime — and the pigeons have been getting ready to breed, and the Sexy Pigeon Dance that the males do with their puffed-out necks is too funny to miss, and… 

“You kids have fun,” says Peter. “Jeff, I’ll see you later.”

Jeff’s eyes follow him, a tension running down through his whole body. “Where—“

“Breakfast fridge?” says Pepper, her voice managing to sound both thoroughly entertained and pressed-and-starched _flat._

“Breakfast fridge,” says Peter. He opens his mouth to add something to Pepper about making sure Jeff gets fed, too, but she gives him That Look, that _I know exactly what you’re about to say so please Don’t because someone will end up embarrassed_ Look.

(Peter knows that Look because he’s seen her give it to Tony many, many times. And, in the interest of avoiding the Pepper Is Tired And Exasperated Now _Please_ Look which follows when the first Look goes ignored, Peter stops talking.)

“Thanks, Mikey, see you later,” says Pepper.

Peter performs a smile for both of them and goes for the elevator, internally bracing himself for whatever commentary JARVIS has stored up for him.

He hears Jeff’s _Would you excuse me for just a minute?_ and Jeff’s footsteps coming up.

So at the touch on his elbow, Peter doesn’t jumpstartle, but turns around calmly, like a normie.

Jeff has clearly not planned out what to say.

Peter waits.

“Thanks,” says Jeff.

“No prob.” He hears the elevator car arrive and settle at level with the floor, but the doors don’t open. JARVIS is waiting, too.

“Is this…”

Peter waits.

Jeff laughs at himself, buries his question in the laugh. “Is this for real?”

“Yep.”

Jeff lingers.

Peter waits.

Jeff scratches at the hairline behind his ear.

“It gets easier,” says Peter.

Jeff gives him a raised brow and side-eye.

“Not, like. Life in general,” says Peter. “I mean the whole.” He gestures, meaninglessly. “Receiving… good things,” he says. “Letting good stuff happen to you without fighting it tooth and nail because it doesn’t make sense. ‘Cause good stuff doesn’t _happen_ to you, right? …Until it does.”

Now Jeff waits.

_”That_ gets easier,” says Peter.

Jeff considers.

“Hm,” says Jeff.

They both laugh at themselves, and the awkwardness, and the surreality that Peter _knows_ Jeff is feeling very hard right now.

“Thanks,” says Jeff.

“You already said that,” says Peter, with a wink, and who cares if winking is cheesy, because he _finally_ just learned how to do it last month and he’s gonna bust it out every chance he gets, because he _can._ (Wade was _thrilled,_ and Peter’ll be damned if he loses the skill so soon after earning it, ‘cause dammit, he _loves_ winking at Wade’s stupid beautiful face and making Wade giggle like an idiot.)

The doors open before Jeff can say anything else.

“One word of advice,” says Peter, as he steps in. “Don’t keep Pepper waiting. She’s busier than Captain America.”

Jeff’s eyes pop and he spins around with a whispered _Shit!_ and, over Jeff’s shoulder, Peter catches the Tired-but-actually-warm-’n’-fuzzy eyeroll and smile that Pepper tosses out there for him.

“You’ll find nine servings of cinnamon pancakes in the breakfast refrigerator,” is all JARVIS offers, behind closed doors.

“You’re a good AI,” says Peter, rubbing his cheek against the smooth glass elevator wall. “A good good boy.”

“Thank you, sir. I find satisfaction in the effort.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, bouncing a little in his red Chucks to feel the buoyancy that keeps his feet just that one tiny bit above the floor. _“Yeah.”_


End file.
